1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a magnet assembly for generating a magnetic field of sufficient homogeneity in a working region to perform a NMR process.
2. Description of the Related Art
Magnet assemblies for generating homogeneous fields for the purposes of NMR are well known in a variety of fields but the present invention is particularly concerned, although not exclusively, with well logging applications. In these applications, the working region must be positioned outside the magnet assembly and in the surrounding rock in order to obtain NMR information from the rock. An early system of this type is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,350,955.
In this arrangement, a pair of axially opposed magnets produce a radial field which has a maximum value and a region of uniformity over an annular volume whose radius is determined by the separation of the magnets. A variation on this scheme is described in WO-A-92/07279 whereby the volume of the homogeneous region is increased to improve the sensitivity of the NMR measurement.
These and similar systems are cylindrically symmetric. In some circumstances it may be desirable to deploy a well-logging instrument which takes the form of a "pad tool". These circumstances are, for example, when the size of the hole is much greater than the diameter of the tool, or when the hole is grossly irregular in section, and it is desired to exclude the response of the drilling fluid. Such a pad tool has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,933,638. The type of magnet system described in this has the drawback that the "throw" (i.e. the distance from the apparatus to the sensitive or working region) and the dimensions of the sensitive region have to be small compared to the dimensions of the magnet system in the transverse plane. This restricts the usefulness of this system.
One approach to solving this problem is described in WO-A-94/18577. In this approach, an auxiliary magnet is positioned with its magnetic axis transverse to the alignment axis of the main magnets. However, this is a relatively costly solution to the problem.